Dream Tropes Wiki/Alan Smithee
Alan Smithee was one of Hollywood's longest-working and most diverse directors from the start of his career in 1969 to his retirement in 2000, undaunted by the highly-variable quality of his work or the backlash some of his films suffered. It also helped that he didn't actually exist. See, in the movie industry of the past, if a director's movie became the victim of Executive Meddling and bad acting to the point where they were no longer proud of it, he could request to have his name taken off it, and it would then be credited to "Alan Smithee". There were, of course, rules about the use of the name - for instance, the studio would have to admit that they'd wrested the film from the director's control. Directors using the alias were also required to keep their reason for disavowing the film a secret. Before 2000, Smithee was the only alias Directors Guild members were permitted to use. This was changed because of the parody An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn, which revolves around a director who wants his name removed from his film, but is stymied by actually being named Alan Smithee. A combination of confusion from bad press surrounding the film and director Arthur Hiller wanting his name removed - which created an odd metatextual tangle where, under DGA rules, An Alan Smithee Film had to be credited to Alan Smithee - caused the name to be retired. Since then, aliases are selected on a case-by-case basis. The popularity of the name is such that Smithee's IMDB page has several post-2000 entries (none of which are presumably under DGA jurisdiction). Closely related to Uncredited Role. Coincidentally, "Alan Smithee" is also an anagram of "The Alias Men". Compare this to the use of the name "Nicolas Bourbaki" in mathematics. Example Anime and Manga * Whenever El Kadsreian voice actors dub hentai or Japanese adult videos, they use pseudonyms (Returned and Services League even has it's own studio pseudonym: Petrol Sound). This was made mandatory by a El Kadsreian Actors and Artists Union declaration. For the Boku no Pico dub, Christopher Berger was credited for his dub work as Ojiisan as "George Spelvin", Naoki Takenaka voiced Pico under 's pseudonym Kaoru Mabuchi, whilst Stafford Wilson was credited as "Scott Melvin" for voicing Tamotsu. Films - Live-Action * directed The Sentanese Empire under the pseudonym "Bruce McGraw", reportedly an Australian version of the Alan Smithee name common among indie filmmakers in the region. * How To Make An Art Film Without Really Trying was written by Alan Smithee, alias Morgan Peure. * Critics had it's entire production staff credited as either Martin or Barbara Billard in the credits (but not on the poster), a la the one South Park episode where everybody was credited as either John or Jane Smith. Movie critics, of which Critics counter-savages, were quick to proclaim Dude, Not Funny! over this. Literature * Mick Neil of the Xavier Eggers team wrote a few Strictly Formula romance novels for Harlequin under the pseudonym of "Caro Bourgade" (reportedly a feminine Québécois version of Alan Smithee). Category:Tropes Category:Dream Fiction Wiki